The law sector is very much competitive, but rewarding. People working in this profession have to deal a with a lot right from their law education days to achieving a license to practice, finding a job, and then making a name for themselves by winning court cases. If you love taking challenges, can cope with stress, have the knack to argue and present your views on any topics, and don't bother about the mental and physical exertion involved in the job, you could best fit in a lawyer profession. But the legal job market is brimming with competition as thousands of people graduate from the law schools every year. So to thrive in such a competitive environment, the first thing needed is an job-winning lawyer resume.
So if trying for a lawyer position with a legal firm, you'll need the help of a lawyer resume sample to see and understand how your skills, abilities, and experience are presented to prospective employers. Before looking at the resume samples, just go through these tip for drafting a lawyer resume.
Contact Information: This is the first thing that comes in a resume to lay out your name in full, current residential address, phone number, and a valid email id.
Career Summary:While the contact information will help the prospective employers understand who has applied for the job, where does he or she lives, and how to contact if the need arises, the Career Summary section introduces you. It is your professional profile in which you state your experience, area of specialty, relevant qualifications, and career achievements. A professional profile is best read when it's written in a short paragraph of 4 to 5 lines. It is where you flaunt your primary strengths that tentatively reserves a position for you in the interview selection list.
It can look and read like this:
Result-driven, energetic, and committed Corporate Lawyer with 8+ years of experience managing all the legal aspects of commercial transactions for employers. Proficient in drafting and analyzing business policies and preparing legal grounds for starting a company. Holds a bachelor's degree in law with specialization in corporate law from Chicago Law School, and posses a practicing license offered by the Chicago State Bar. Enjoys excellent track records of achieving over 92% success rate in settlement cases.
Career Objective: If experience is not on your side, career objective is what you need to write. Since you're trying to get into the law sector, this statement needs to identify the job role you're looking for, your experience, education, and skills. Along with these details, the objective statement needs to state why you feel the prospective employer must employ you. It must read like this:
Result-driven and highly passionate Criminal Lawyer with 3+ years of experience seeking a similar position in your esteemed organization where my education in law, along with one year of internship experience can help in winning cases for your clients and increasing your organization's revenue. I am confident that my abilities to research cases, interview witnesses, and present cases in the best light will bring more 'wins' to your firm.
Summary of Skills:Lawyers read every section of law related to their field and as such are expected to use it to defend their clients in court cases. They also have to read and draft lots of documents, present and argue cases in the respective courts, and try to win them. For this, lawyers need to hold a strong patience, and be able to cope with the stress entailed in the job. Thus, any prospective employer would like to read the following skills on a lawyer resume:
Experience: The experience section is the meat of your resume based on which employers decide whether they should meet you or not. Therefore, giving an extra attention and effort for drafting the experience section of your lawyer resume is important. Equally important is the language, and action verbs used in describing how you handled your responsibilities, and what you've achieved during your tenure.
The work experience must not be in a paragraph. It should be showcased in bullet points highlighting each responsibility and achievement using one single bullet point. Try to include words and phrases listed in the job description so that the Application Tracking System picks your resume. To make your experience more interesting, you can quantify your achievements as well.
Here is an example you must follow in writing your responsibilities and achievements.
Education: The education section on a lawyer resume needs to state the degree you hold in law, including the name of the law school with city and state, and year you got the degree.
Certifications: Any training that you completed to take up the lawyer profession and one that helped you in practicing law can be mentioned in this section. If you have certification in foreign languages (Fresh, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, and Italian), your job prospects will improve.
So these are the tips that will help you in drafting your lawyer resume that will impress the prospective employers and would get you an interview call. For more help, please refer to the lawyer resume samples by choosing and clicking on the specific links pertaining to your field.
Checkout our sample lawyer resumes below :